Day 5: The Cross
We have a word in our English language that is derived from the word “crucifixion.” It’s the word “excruciating,” which means, fittingly, “causing great pain.” When the Persian Empire began crucifying criminals as a form of capital punishment a few hundred years before Christ, they introduced not only a slow and painful form of suffering, but one that was a public spectacle—it was a level of humiliation unseen before, and it was meant to deter people from illegal behavior.
And at the center of every crucifixion was the structure used to hoist up the guilty party—a cross. The criminal would have to carry the cross (or at least part of it) in front of the town and in front of their family, friends, and those who knew them. Jesus would have carried the top of the cross to the place of crucifixion. And when he arrived on a hill outside the gates of Jerusalem, this wooden beam would have been placed horizontally on or near the top of a permanent, vertical, wooden pole and then attached to it. After the cross was in place, the hands (actually the wrists) would be spread out and nailed to the horizontal piece while the feet were nailed to the vertical piece. And while the pain would be unbearable, the stretching of the body would lead to the actual cause of death, suffocation. Again, we get the word “excruciating” from this act of crucifixion.
For several hundred years after Jesus’s death, the cross would serve as a grim reminder of the torture Jesus endured. But beginning around the fourth century, there would be a shift. Artwork would surface that would make the cross—as hard as it is to believe—something pleasant to look at. Jesus followers began seeing the cross not just as a reminder of Christ’s physical death, but as more of an icon representing our sins being paid for. It came to be a sign of victory.
And of course, it’s both. The cross is a symbol of both death and life. It encapsulates the story of Jesus, who died for us and whose death freed us.
There is a song written in the early 1900s by George Bennard that talks about that very thing. The song is “The Old Rugged Cross.” The first words say this:
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross
The emblem of suffering and shame
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain
And there it is—both sides of the coin. The cross is an emblem of suffering and shame, and it’s also something we love because it’s where Jesus paid the price for the sins of the world.
Jesus endured the cross on a Friday, but it was on Sunday when people began to understand how the cross was only part of the story. The cross paid a debt to God that we couldn’t pay ourselves, but it was an empty tomb and a resurrected Jesus that proved even death was no match for him. Friday is only good because of what became clear on Sunday. The resurrection shows us that not only are our sins forgiven, but there is new life to be found in following Jesus. The resurrection proves that the work of the cross is finished, and Jesus is victorious.
Heavenly Father, on this Good Friday, help us not to quickly pass by the excruciating pain that Jesus bore on the cross. We thank you for the resurrection that came that Sunday morning and proved that death was no match for you. And thank you for making a way through Jesus for us to spend eternity with you. Amen.
Day 4: The Lamb
If you do a quick search, you’ll find a lamb is mentioned in the Old Testament 96 times. Of those 96, the “lamb” is referred to as a sacrifice a vast majority of the time—in fact, 85 of the 96 times. For hundreds of years, Jews would bring lambs to the temple, and a priest would sacrifice the lamb as a payment for a person’s sin. However, the lamb was never viewed as a permanent payment for sin. The sacrificial lamb had a shelf life of one year. So at least once every 12 months, you’d need to bring another lamb to the temple to sacrifice.
The lamb—or more specifically the lamb’s blood—was seen as a sacrificial payment of death to cover the cost associated with sinning against God.
Perhaps you've heard the story of when God commanded Moses to appear before Pharaoh and ask Pharaoh to release the enslaved Israelites. God sent nine plagues as a sign of his power and wrath, but after each one, Pharaoh refused to let God's people go. The tenth and final plague involved an angel of death taking the lives of all firstborn males in Egypt. But God provided a way of escape for his people—the blood of a lamb. Death would pass over any home that had lamb's blood on the door. To this day, Jews all over the world celebrate Passover in remembrance of that.
For Jesus followers, we have a lamb that provides a permanent sacrifice for sin. Not only does Passover remind us of how God spared the firstborn Jewish boys during the exodus from Egypt, Passover also symbolizes how God has caused the penalty of sin to pass over us, once and for all, because of the blood of a perfect, eternal lamb—the blood of Jesus.
In Jesus’s day, there was a prophet on the scene known as John the Baptizer (or John the Baptist). John would baptize people as a sign of their repentance, but similar to the lamb of the Old Testament, this baptism only symbolized the covering of sins from the past. It wouldn't have been uncommon for people to come to John for baptism multiple times throughout their lives.
But John had insider information. His mother, Elizabeth, and Jesus’s mother, Mary, were related, which means John the Baptist and Jesus were related. So John had intel. Early on in Jesus’s ministry, as it says in the Gospel of John (written by a different John, one of Jesus’s disciples), we read this: “John [the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29).
There’s our word: lamb. And a few verses later, John the Baptist repeats it:
“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’” (John 1:35–36)
John the Baptist knew Jesus was sent from God to cover the sins of the world. To what degree he knew Jesus would physically shed his blood is tough to say, but around three years after John recognized Jesus as the Lamb of God, Jesus, the perfect lamb, would be the permanent sacrifice who would pay for the sins of the world.
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for sending Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We’re so grateful for the sacrifice he made to free us from the penalty of sin. In the name above all names, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Day 3: Water Basin
More than 500 years before Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the prophet Zechariah painted a picture of what the future king of Israel would look like. See if this sounds familiar to how Jesus entered the city:
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)
Jesus knew that his entry would be making an announcement—that he indeed would be the king the nation had been waiting on for centuries. But it wouldn’t be the type of king most people were expecting. In some ways, it would be the opposite.
A few days after that triumphal entry, when the crowd cheered and laid palm tree branches along his path, Jesus would do something not very king-like at all. In fact, he did something almost exclusively reserved for a slave or a servant. In the middle dinner—in the middle of celebrating the Passover—here’s what happened, according to his friend John, who saw this firsthand:
He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:4–5)
Notice a couple of things. First, Jesus did this even for Judas, who he knew was about to accept 30 pieces of silver in exchange for leading Jesus’s enemies right to him.
Secondly, Jesus didn’t just wash the dusty feet of his disciples. He went all in. He first took off his outer garment, grabbed a towel, and then filled a basin with water. These acts normally would be done by someone who was beneath these men in social status. Jesus wanted to leave no doubt about the message he was sending: he came to serve. Nothing was beneath him. And if they didn’t get that lesson from his actions, he made it clear with his words:
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. (John 13:14–15)
Another Gospel writer, Luke, tells us what the disciples were doing just a little while before dinner: they were arguing among themselves as to which of them was the greatest. Jesus washed his disciples feet in response to their argument. Do you really want to be great? Jesus was saying. Then do stuff like this.
Obviously, foot washing isn’t a common occurrence in our culture, but chances are you’ll have a clear opportunity to serve someone around you in the very near future. Perhaps it’s a neighbor in need or a colleague at work. Or maybe it’s a bit closer to home, like someone in your family. While your next step likely won’t be to grab a towel and a water basin, there will be something you can do. Let Jesus’s words guide your response: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
Heavenly Father,
We can only imagine how it must have felt for the disciples to have Jesus wash their feet. Help us to see those around us like Jesus does and to serve them as he would. Help us follow the example Jesus set for us. Amen.
Day 2: Coins
Pretend you made a chart of all the people you’ve heard of in the Bible. On one side, you put the people who could be characterized as good (not perfect, but good). The other side would be the bad people—the corrupt, the antagonists. Almost certainly, there’s one name that would for sure appear on the naughty list: Judas Iscariot, the disciple who paved the way for Jesus to be arrested, bought by a bribe of 30 pieces of silver.
Right before the disciples had a meal to celebrate the Jewish Passover, Judas slipped out, went to the chief priests, and agreed to hand Jesus over to them. Matthew writes about what happened later that night in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was asking his friends to wake up:
While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.” Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. (Matthew 26:47–50)
And with that, Judas Iscariot sealed his fate to become the most famous traitor in history. The obvious question is why? Why did he do that? Was it simply for the money? Maybe. It’s possible those 30 pieces of silver were worth up to six months of work, depending on which type of silver coins they were. We know what the disciple John thought of Judas; in John chapter 12, he called Judas a corrupt treasurer of the group's money—he called him a thief. So yes, it may have been just about the money. Then again, those coins could also have been worth as little as five days’ wages.
There’s something else we observe from John’s account of the story: Judas tried to return the money; he wanted out of the deal. So here’s another possibility: Judas could
have been like many who bought into the idea that Jesus was about to become a national leader—a king of sorts. In many people’s minds, Jesus was about to take over. Judas could have been trying to speed things up by forcing a confrontation, one that would surely end with Jesus winning. But it didn’t go as Judas thought it would. Jesus surrendered without any fight at all. And once Jesus was in custody, the guilt Judas had was so great, he took his own life.
Make no mistake about it: Judas made a bad decision, and maybe a bad decision with bad motives—either for financial gain or to be part of a power grab. But dare we say, Judas could also have made a bad decision simply based on being incorrect. It’s possible he turned Jesus over to the authorities because, in his mind, he believed it would lead his friend, his leader, to become the leader. These are answers we don’t have.
It's pretty easy to see Judas Iscariot as a villain. And when we think of those coins, we can view them as a symbol of betrayal. But if we look a little deeper into the story, we may find that we have more in common with Judas than we like to think. We all have sin. We've all messed up. We've rationalized our decisions to serve ourselves. We've found ourselves in situations where we've wondered, How in the world did I get here? We’ve all experienced the pain of regret—regret that a lot of us still carry around. The hard truth is we all have a little bit of Judas inside us.
But praise be to God, that’s not primarily how our heavenly Father views us. He sees us through the lens of his perfect son Jesus, our Savior, who gave his life on our behalf.
So the next time you see a coin, pick it up. Hold it for a second, then let it go. Let that serve as a reminder that though we’ve sinned, we can let go of the permanent judgment that goes with that sin. God sees us as much more than our bad decisions and sinful choices. We are the reason Jesus chose to offer his life—to make a way for all of us to know our heavenly Father.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for not counting our sins against us. Thank you for sending Jesus to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Thank you for loving us in spite of our failures and offering life through the sacrifice Jesus made for us. Amen.
Day 1: Palm Branches
The day before Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time, he had performed one of his better-known miracles. And more than likely, Jesus performed this particular miracle to foreshadow what was going to happen to him in the coming days. In the neighboring town of Bethany, Jesus had brought a man—his friend Lazarus—back to life after he’d been dead for several days.
For some, that miracle sealed the deal: Jesus was indeed the chosen king they had been waiting on. He was the one who would rescue all of Israel! For the last several centuries, God’s people had been fragmented and overpowered. But now, in the mind of many Jews, Jesus would change all of that.
The day after Jesus resurrected Lazarus, Jesus made his way to Jerusalem to take part in the Passover festival.
While all four Gospels describe his entry into the city, this is John’s account:
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!” (John 12:12–13)
When the crowd shouted “Hosanna,” they were putting their hopes in Jesus for their salvation. The word literally means “Please save us!” or “Thank you for saving us!” And to further demonstrate that they saw Jesus as royalty, they lined his path with palm branches.
Throughout generations, palm trees were used during festive occasions as a sign of victory, but not just in a military sense. Palm branches meant more than just winning. They were a sign of care and protection, just like the leaves of the trees could protect from nature’s elements and sun. Palm branches were on coins and buildings. Even a thousand years before Jesus, King Solomon had palm branches carved into the walls and doors of the ancient temple.
So the people were celebrating Jesus: “Here comes the person who will not only lead us to victory, he will protect us and watch over us.” But the manner in which he would become their Savior would be far different than they could have imagined. In the coming days, Jesus would not rescue them from Roman rule or protect them in the way they may have envisioned a king would. And while palm branches were an appropriate symbol for a victorious king, this king would not be like other kings.
Those palm branches representing goodness, victory, and protection had a much bigger meaning than people could have imagined. Jesus was coming to establish a kingdom that would last forever.
Heavenly Father,
Help us to see Jesus for who he is and not the picture we may be tempted to paint of him. Thank you for sending Jesus to be the final King whose kingdom will never end. Amen.